Staple Vids

All time favourite vids of YouTube:

1. Ray William Johnson (keyword: raywilliamjohnson)

One word: hilarious! this guy makes video blogs (vlogs is the term I think) to review other videos that went viral, that is funny+unique+disturbing videos that floats in the web. Check out his latest entry Hump Like Bunnies (I swear the vlog has nothing to do with nature's mating process)

2. Cooking with Francis (keyword: cookingwithdog)

Before you think it's total absurdity for a dog to cook, check out the vids first! Francis is a little toy poodle who talks English with weird accent (yeah, I heard umm.. more unique) introducing Japanese dishes. The cook is a friendly-looking Japanese okasan who is undoubtedly the most hardworking cook in Youtube, or maybe that's just the way of preparing Japanese dishes. The latest vid taught us on how to make Christmas cake, but check this out too because something's bound to be funny at the end of it.

More Sugah!

As promised, Ms ID's packages of butter biscuits (I was asleep when she packed them, so no chance for up-close pics). Father was very fascinated by them, he decided to start selling them next week on pasar malam. More workload for me. But it's cool for someone who started heating the oven at 10 am to meet 2 pm deadlines.

So cute~ Gyaaa why she didn't leave extra at home!

Mr. Brain said feed your brain with sweets

The past weeks had been, uhm, hectic? It is normal here in our household, since everybody wants to display their exquisite sense of humor. Including Rayzo. Interesting fact: Dila and Fawee are excellent cooks. Mama said it's because she guided them through the whole cooking process, in an attempt to make me feel better about my tasteless cooking. It's okay, I prefer eating than cooking anyway.

Last weekend me and Jack went to our eldest cousin's wedding, Dr. Boboy. The weather was cloudy, I think we has a little rain in the middle of the ceremony but it wasn't life-threatening. We stayed to help around till the very end and lived to bring home the second tier cake out of a 3-tier wedding cake sponsored by Boboy's pops' friend. When I saw how big the cake is, my heart cried out of fear for the upcoming calories.

Oh yeah, and we made 1000+ of these sponge cakes for the wedding for the guests. Hard work really, even for seven people (yeah Rayzo helped too. He still get credits even if he made a cameo)

Bulky size cakes, fitted into individual plastics before being inserted into boxes

Dila took over the title pastry maker in the house recently. She made eclairs plus pastry cream (I usually use whipping cream, no hassle). The cream was a bit burned, but still better than the lazy bum who don't even add sugar to the whipping cream.

Next week I have an interview to attend to. This time I know not to put much confidence in securing the job. And on the weekend I'll be attending a course on rescue operation as a part of my never-ending Red Crescent instructor course. My last experience of rescue operation taught me to be in good shape, because it is strenuous physically and mentally. Note to self: don't forget shampoo.

Sloppiest Ice Cream Cake..yet

Ingredients for ice cream cake:

1/2 kg sponge/chiffon cake

1/2 kg ice cream, softened in room temperature, then molded into cylinder of the same diameter of the cake, before being frozen to retain shape

frosting, whipping cream's good too, only the downturn is extra calories (sorry, too much diabetic recipe books lately)

*spoiler alert! I used chocolate sponge cake, (cheap) strawberry ice cream, chocolate frosting. Simply because all mentioned items' expiry dates are approaching.

Assembly made-easy:

Cut cake into half, horizontally. Fix the frozen ice cream in the middle and place the other half of the cake on top.

Weird colour combination/taste

Smear the frosting/whipping cream all over the cake. If the ice cream starts melting and get in the way of frosting process, shimpai shinaide. You can freeze the cake for 10 minutes, then continue frosting. Or you can do it my way, turn a blind eye to the ugly sight of chocolate/strawberry marble effect.

Putting on make-up time!

Tada! Ready for presentation! At least good enough for food fight.

The visible white line in the middle of the cake is due to the ice cream's temperature. And you thought something paranormal happened..kuh kuh kuh (creepy laughter)

Best to freeze the cake before eating, be it 10 minutes or 10 hours.

Itadakimasu~

Comfort Food 1: Spageti Carbonara

Why am I suddenly writing about food? Because I found several key items for making spageti carbonara while cleaning up the larger-than-life freezer in my baking kitchen.

Crab filament sticks (a healthier option is of course real seafood, or chicken/meat whatever if seafood is lethal to you)

And mozarella cheese. The name says it all, perfect italiano~

And yeah, spageti. I found a block of frozen solid in the freezer, and that kicked the pasta craving in me. The spageti is being thawed by steaming.

So, three key items (just like Blue's Clues), I started off with melting 2 tablespoons of margerine.

Throw in 2 pieces of chopped garlic. Must fend off sparky sparky Edward!

I used low heat because I'm sure to burn the garlic in the middle of taking pictures. Add in 2 tablespoons of flour to make the roux (ahem 1st french word).

Stir, stir till it becomes a paste and put in about 2 cups of milk. I made mine with evaporated milk, so I put in 1/2 cup milk + 1 1/2 cups plain water. Whatever works. Usually they do.

Pour in a little at 1st, so it won't become lumpy, or use cold milk. And down with the rest of the milk. Dump in the crab sticks and a little salt to taste . Keep stirring until it forms a thick gravy.

Turn off the heat. Put in the spageti, coating them with the gravy.

The half-finished product. I prefer to make thin slices of cheese, arrange them on the top and bake them brown. Or the cheese can be grated and mixed along with the crab sticks.

Putting cheese on top. Using a microwave to melt the cheese is okay, but it won't brown the top. So I use the oven. Set on 180 degree celcius, about 10 minutes.

Walawei looks so nice. Top picture: no top brown is seen, because I stumbled the baking pan and it went upside down into the plate. And a pair of chopsticks to gobble it down. Forks are too easy.

After scraping half of the carbonara back into the baking pan, I re-bake it plus more cheese, just for the sake of taking a picture with brown top. I have lots of time in hand anyway. Meanwhile my duty to clean the freezer is still left undone.

Err this is supposed to be a portion of 2, so don't follow my example of not sharing and watch your waistline.

Next on Comfort Food edition: Botok-botok (You: What in the world?) special for Miss julie^beth

You are what you eat

I'm a business person. So it's only natural to support other fellow businessmen. I like wandering around flea markets and buy any product that caught my attention a.k.a gaudy stuffs.

Today I went to Amcorp Mall in PJ. They organised flea markets in the mall every Sunday. Most of the hawkers sell vintage stuffs and decorative ornaments. There are stalls selling adult collectibles too. And, behold, they have cake stalls too. I bought a jar of coconut cookies and several packets of home-made chocolates. The cookies are divine, tough and crumbly, the way coconut cookies are supposed to be. 5 stars!

Then comes the chocolates. I can still remember the sweet, motherly smile of the madam selling those morsel-sized chocolates. She had chocolate with dried kiwis, chocolate with cashew nuts and chocolate with dates. I bought all 3 variations and scored myself a freebies, mystery square-sized chocolate wrapped in golden paper.

The chocolate wasn't so nice, tasted like the time I made chocolate using compound dark chocolate plus cheap white chocolate to taste. It tasted more like dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate, bland in short. The barely-there kiwis, cashew nuts and dates were adding salt to the wound. But the ones that made me stopped eating was the mystery chocolate. It was so bland it made the raisins added tasted like plastic. My verdict: minus one star.

The aftertaste is still lingering in my mouth. Maybe it's all in my head, but I'm sure this unpleasant memory will trigger nauseous reaction during this entire week.

Lesson of the day: When cocoa craving kicks in, always stick to Cadbury.